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The Adventures of Huck Finn (1984 film)
The Adventures of Huck Finn is a 1984 traditional American animated musical comedy-drama adventure film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures Plot The story begins in fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri (based on the actual town of Hannibal, Missouri), on the shore of the Mississippi River "forty to fifty years ago" (the novel having been published in 1884). Huckleberry "Huck" Finn (the protagonist and first-person narrator) and his friend, Thomas "Tom" Sawyer, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier adventures (detailed in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer). Huck explains how he is placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas, who, together with her stringent sister, Miss Watson, are attempting to "sivilize" him and teach him religion. Finding civilized life confining, his spirits are raised somewhat when Tom Sawyer helps him to escape one night past Miss Watson's slave Jim, to meet up with Tom's gang of self-proclaimed "robbers". Just as the gang's activities begin to bore Huck, he is suddenly interrupted by the reappearance of his shiftless father, "Pap", an abusive alcoholic. Knowing that Pap would only spend the money on alcohol, Huck is successful in preventing Pap from acquiring his fortune; however, Pap kidnaps Huck and leaves town with him. Cast * TBD as Huckleberry Finn, "Huck" to his friends, is a boy about "thirteen or fourteen or along there" years old. (Chapter 17) He has been brought up by his father, the town drunk, and has a difficult time fitting into society. * TBD as Tom Sawyer is Huck's best friend and peer, the main character of other Twain novels and the leader of the town boys in adventures. He is "the best fighter and the smartest kid in town".[ * Widow Douglas is the kind woman who takes Huck in after he helped save her from a violent home invasion. She tries her best to civilize Huck, believing it is her Christian duty. * TBD as Miss Watson is the widow's sister, a tough old spinster who also lives with them. She is fairly hard on Huck, causing him to resent her a good deal. Mark Twain may have drawn inspiration for this character from several people he knew in his life.4 * Jim is Miss Watson's physically large but mild-mannered slave. Huck becomes very close to Jim when they reunite after Jim flees Miss Watson's household to seek refuge from slavery, and Huck and Jim become fellow travelers on the Mississippi River. * "Pap" Finn, Huck's father, a brutal alcoholic drifter. He resents Huck getting any kind of education. He is only interested in his son, so that he can beg or extort money from Huck to feed his alcohol addiction. * Judith Loftus plays a small part in the novel — being the kind and perceptive woman whom Huck talks to in order to find out about the search for Jim — but many critics believe her to be the best drawn female character in the novel.4 * The Grangerfords, an aristocratic Kentuckian family headed by the sexagenarian Colonel Saul Grangerford, take Huck in after he is separated from Jim on the Mississippi. Huck becomes close friends with the youngest male of the family, Buck Grangerford, who is Huck's age. By the time Huck meets them, the Grangerfords have been engaged in an age-old blood feud with another local family, the Shepherdsons. * The Duke and the King are two otherwise unnamed con artists whom Huck and Jim take aboard their raft just before the start of their Arkansas adventures. They pose as the long-lost Duke of Bridgewater and the long-dead Louis XVII of France in an attempt to over-awe Huck and Jim, who quickly come to recognize them for what they are, but cynically pretend to accept their claims to avoid conflict. * Doctor Robinson is the only man who recognizes that the King and Duke are phonies when they pretend to be British. He warns the townspeople, but they ignore him. * Mary Jane, Joanna, and Susan Wilks are the three young nieces of their wealthy guardian, Peter Wilks, who has recently died. The Duke and the King try to steal their inheritance by posing as Peter's estranged brothers from England. * Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas Phelps buy Jim from the Duke and the King. She is a loving, high-strung "farmer's wife", and he a plodding old man, both a farmer and a preacher. Huck poses as their nephew after he parts from the conmen. * Becky a daughter who is Tom's love interest and whom Huck calls “Bessie” The Grangerfords - A family that takes Huck in after a steamboat hits his raft, separating him from Jim * .Judge Thatcher Kindly town judge who watches over Huck's reward money